Posts Tagged ‘House Democrats’

So Barack Obama decides to cave in to Republicans, thinking if he keeps using his demagogic rhetoric his base won’t realize he’s abandoning them for his own political future.

Obama gave a televised session (you know, to go along with the million billion other televised sessions the media whore has done by now), and likened Republicans to terrorist-hostage-takers for voting according to their basic principles.

Only Democrats should be able to vote according to their principles; anyone else doing it is evil.

Republican leaders have largely ignored the fact that, if they are “hostage takers” for “holding tax cuts for the middle class hostage” to tax cuts for the rich, then Democrats are every single iota as much “hostage takers” for “holding tax cuts for the middle class hostage” to Marxist class warfare ideology. Republicans seem to think that that fact is so obvious only a moron wouldn’t understand it.

What they don’t realize is that approximately half the country are morons.

But Obama’s “Rhetoric for Dummies” didn’t work for him; because while Obama was demonizing the Republicans who were willing to strike a deal (that they also weren’t particularly thrilled with), Democrats were screaming themselves into the mother of all hissy fits.

So Obama – ever the demagogue – went back to demagogy in yet a second media session. This time against his very own party as he labeled them as “sanctimonious.” Which I don’t doubt drove the sanctimonious Democrats absolutely crazy (well, beyond crazy, anyway; they were already crazy).

So Obama demonized the people in the rival party who were willing to accept his deal; and then he demonized the people in his own party who weren’t willing to accept his deal.

You’d think that kind of approach would work every time, wouldn’t you?

Unfortunately, for those who don’t live in plastic bubbles, it didn’t:

The House and Senate appear to be on a collision course over President Obama’s controversial tax plan, after House Democrats voted to block the package from coming to the floor in its current form.

Though the vote was not binding, the House Democratic caucus on Thursday approved a measure by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., effectively rejecting the GOP-negotiated deal unless and until a majority of Democrats support it. One Democratic leadership aide said the vote “shows how much the White House screwed this up.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, told Fox News he expects the Senate to take up the bill anyway without any substantive changes Thursday afternoon. He predicted the measure would pass, a belief echoed by a number of Senate Democratic aides interviewed by Fox News. But that would send the bill straight to the House, where some members are mounting a rebellion.

“If it’s take it or leave it, we’ll leave it,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, after the caucus vote Thursday, adding that he thinks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will take her cue from the caucus.

Pelosi, releasing a statement shortly after the vote, said only that the party would “continue discussions” with Republicans and the president to “improve the proposal” before a floor vote.

“Democratic priorities remain clear: to provide a tax cut for working families, to create jobs and economic growth, to assist millions of our fellow Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and to do this in a fiscally sound way,” she said. The White House said that Congress was working through the “normal process” of debating legislation.

The Democrats’ resolution specifically stated that the tax package in its current form “should not come to the House floor for consideration.”

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., said “it’s a pretty clear message. We don’t like the bill.”

The vote came after 54 Democrats, led by Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont, signed a letter in opposition to the tax cut deal. The 54 Democrats, by themselves, would not be enough to block the package in the House, depending on how much support it gets from Republicans. But the caucus vote could shake things up.

The White House continues to face an uphill climb in convincing his party to get on board with the package. The administration appeared to be breaking through after Vice President Biden visited the Hill on Wednesday, and some Democrats left acknowledging that the package could have enough support to pass.

As of Thursday, Democrats were all over the map. Most Republicans seemed to be standing by the negotiated package, but a few prominent conservatives were peeling off and criticizing it as too expensive.

Speaking Thursday at a White House event promoting American exports, President Obama said the vote will determine whether the economy “moves forward or backward.”

The president again pressed Congress to pass the agreement, saying it has the potential to create millions of jobs. He said if it fails, Americans would see smaller paychecks and would result in fewer jobs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

So, let’s sum up: Republicans, who are willing to support the bill by giving some of what they don’t want to get some of what they want, are “hostage takers.” And Obama is vilifying the party who in his own words are trying to create millions of jobs and prevent Americans from seeing smaller paychecks and fewer jobs. Because that’s just the kind of turd he is. Meanwhile, Democrats, who refuse to support the bill unless they get everything they want, are NOT hostage takers.

And that’s the operating narrative, because, yes, half the country is actually that stupid.

But let’s take a moment to consider something else: just how shockingly terribly the guy who has refused to show us his birth certificate has butchered this negotiation.

And the beauty of it is that you don’t have to listen to conservatives like me to hear that anymore; just pay a little attention to what DEMOCRATS are now saying about Obama.

An unidentified Democratic lawmaker let slip his frustration at President Obama’s proposed tax compromise, apparently muttering “f**k the president,” during a heated debate this morning.

I don’t know, maybe they’re pissed off because Obama basically didn’t even bother to consult them before undermining their agenda. Because Obama is an abject failure as a leader and as a president. He’s already “led” the Democrat Party to it’s worst “shellacking” since 1938, and now he hasn’t even gotten out of the lame duck session before he’s warming up to lead them to an even BIGGER shellacking in 2012.

What’s great about this is that it is shaping up to be a win-win for Republicans. By being the first to agree to Obama’s offer, they have the upper hand if Democrats refuse it. I mean, idiotic morons I mean Democrats aside, WHO’S responsible for making every American pay more in taxes if this deal falls through??? And then add to that the fact that if the deal doesn’t go through now, Republicans will be in an even STRONGER position when they take over the House of Representatives in January.

It’s shaping up to be funny, it its own twisted way: as terrible as Obama is for America, he’s even worse for the Democrat Party.

Let’s file this under the category, “Yet another stupid Democrat idea”: Let’s finance a socialized medicine plan that Americans don’t want by taxing the owners of small business who create the few jobs we’ve got left.

(CNSNews.com) – More than a million small business owners and about two-thirds of the profits earned by U.S. small businesses would be hit by the income tax increase on the “rich” that House Democratic leaders want to enact to pay for the health-care reform plan President Obama wants passed this summer, a taxpayer watchdog say s.

Ryan Ellis, director of tax policy for Americans for Tax Reform, told CNSNews.com he calculated that 1.09 million of 21.5 million small business owners would see a one- to three-percent surtax on their profits in order to fund the House of Representatives’ trillion-dollar health care reform bill.

While only about five percent of small business owners would be exposed to the extra charge, Ellis says two in every three dollars of profit made by small businesses would be subject to it.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, announced late Friday that Democrats want to enact this tax increase.

The plan reportedly would include a one percent increase in the income tax rate paid by individuals earning $280,000 or more and by households earning at least $350,000. Steeper rate increases of up to three percent would be imposed on those earning $500,000 and $1 million or more. The committee hopes these income-tax rate increases will raise about $540 billion for the federal government over a decade.

Small business owners would be subject to the income-tax rate increases because many of them report the profits of their small businesses on individual tax returns. As a result, the roughly five percent who make more than $200,000 a year would be hit with the extra tax.

Ellis said the Obama administration’s claims that only a few small businesses will be affected misses the point. “(T)hat’s what the Obama guys will always tell you. It’s a small, single-digit percentage of small businesses that would be affected by this, and that’s absolutely true. It’s probably somewhere between five and 10 percent … of all small businesses.

“But if you actually look at the small business profits being reported, two-thirds of all small business profits are reported in these households.”

Indeed, IRS figures from 2006, the most recent year reported, show that $479 billion of the $707 billion in small business profits was reported by households in the top two percent of earners, those earning more than $200,000.

Republicans went on the offensive after Rangel’s Friday announcement. A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “In the middle of a serious recession, with unemployment nearing double digits nationwide, the last thing we need is a tax increase on small businesses, which will cost the American economy even more jobs.”

Blue Dog Democrats in the House also voiced some concern. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) told CQ Today, “I have a concern with going outside the health care system” when discussing funding options.

“I feel like the House has moved this issue so far to the left we’ve taken ourselves out of the discussion entirely.”

But Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) told The Washington Post that “if (the bill) works right,” the high earners who pay extra taxes will also see lowered health insurance premiums.

Ellis, however, is skeptical. “If you’re a very successful company and you’re making more than a million dollars a year,” he said, then at “a three percentage point surtax, you basically have to assume that their healthcare costs will go down by 3 percent of their profits in order to even themselves out.”

“That’s just not reasonable to expect,” he told CNSNews.com. “(T)here’s not one example of where the government is going to go in and take over something and start spending money on something and then it saves money.”

Rea Hederman, assistant director of the Center for Data Analysis at the conservative Heritage Foundation, also said small business owners will not see their money back unless they force their employees to take the proposed public health care option.

“The only way they would see reductions in health care,” he said, “is if small businesses just say we’re not going to offer health care to our employees all together, and I don’t think that’s a direction that people want to go,” Hederman said.

While the surtax for small businesses may top out at three percent, Hederman said, “in percentage terms, the tax burden is jumping somewhere between four and a half to five percent, and this is going to be combined with the expiration of some of President Bush’s tax cuts.”

The health care surtax would come in addition to the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2010, which will move the federal top rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

In a statement, Thomas Hodge, president of the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, said total top rates, including federal taxes, could push past the 50 percent mark in some states.

“Combining top federal and state rates, and factoring in all deductions, the government would be taking over half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers in two-thirds of the states under this latest funding scheme.”

According to Hederman, “Unfortunately, right now, businesses are going to have trouble pricing in (these) cost increases.

“(So) businesses will continue to try to wring out as much efficiency as they can in the labor force, and that means cutting back hours and cutting back jobs,” he said.

A May 2009 survey performed by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, small business owners identified high taxes as the second biggest problem facing them, trailing only poor sales.

The tax increase, if enacted, would take effect in 2011.

People see the “small number” of small businesses affected by the tax and think it’s no big deal. But think about it: there’s the difference between small businesses that are truly small and small business that are big enough to actually hire people.

When I was a kid I had a paper route. I didn’t work directly for the newspaper; rather, I was listed as “an independent contractor.”

I had a small business. And like the overwhelming majority of small businesses, I didn’t make a ton of money, and I certainly didn’t hire anybody.

The small businesses that are going to be the most impacted – and the most negatively impacted at that – are the ones that hire people. And given that these small businesses are going to experience the double whammy of having to pay for Obama’s imposed health care burden even as their profits are taxed to pay for everyone else’s health care, there are going to be a lot of job losses, as surely as 1 + 1 = 2. Only a fool, or a Democrat, would 1) raise a business’ cost while 2) reducing its profits and NOT expect that business to cut back.

Another (related) factor that needs to be contemplated emerges from thinking about the concern of the blue dog Democrats regarding going outside the health care system to fund the Obama health care system. If the darn Democrat health care plan is REALLY something that will save money for the health care system, then why do you have to go outside the system to pay for it? Why impose so much in additional taxes for something that is supposed to cost LESS? The fact of the matter is that this thing is going to cost TRILLIONS. It will be like Medicare, with its $61.6 trillion unfunded liabilities, and which is expected to go completely bankrupt by 2015.

And a frightening corollary to that is exactly why people like me keep calling Obama’s health care grab “socialized medicine” to begin with. Because the plan will necessarily push people into the government plan in FAR greater numbers than Democrats claim will go in. Small business who employ most American workers, squeezed by the double whammy, will have absolutely no choice but to push their workers into the government plan.

Democrats naively argue that a government plan would not be intended to replace private health care plans, but would only reduce costs by “competition.” They just don’t have enough functioning brain cells to understand that a government system – which does NOT have to depend upon profitability the way private systems do, and which can draw its funding by forcing even its competition to pay for it through taxation – doesn’t “compete.” It devours. The way Republican Rep. Mike Pence put it:

But what I heard yesterday at my town hall meeting was profound skepticism about the introduction of a government option to compete with private health insurance companies within this economy. I think most Americans know that the government competes with the private sector the way an alligator competes with a duck. It consumes it.

Bottom line: we’re going to tax our producers into non-producers in order to create a socialized medicine boondoggle that is going to be a disaster.

It is long past time we stopped listening to liberals’ Marxist class warfare messages. The rich aren’t the bourgeoisie, and the rest of us aren’t the proletariat. Rather than welcoming the government seizing the rich’s wealth to create one social program after another, we seriously need to start demanding that government finally get the hell out of the way and let all the people have the freedom to invest and spend as we see fit. For it is liberty and freedom, rather than tyranny and big-government control, that made this country great. And only returning to the fundamental principles of liberty and freedom are going to be able to get us out of the massive crisis that too much government has forced us into.